A XOR gate (exclusive OR gate) is a digital logic gate that performs a specific logical operation on two binary inputs (usually denoted as A and B), producing a single binary output. The XOR gate output is 1 (true) only when the number of input signals that are 1 is odd.
The truth table of a XOR gate is as follows:
A B Output
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0
From the truth table, you can see that the XOR gate returns a 1 output when the inputs are different (one is 0, the other is 1), and it returns a 0 output when the inputs are the same (both 0 or both 1).
The XOR operation is often used in various digital circuits, computer algorithms, and programming applications for tasks such as bitwise manipulation, error detection, and data encryption, among others. It is a fundamental component in digital logic and plays a crucial role in building more complex logic circuits and computational systems.